Community Justice and a Vision of Collective Efficacy: The Case of Restorative Conferencing.

Source: (2002) Criminal Justice 2000, Vol. 3, pp.225-29.

The chapter links conferencing both to a broader vision of the citizen and community in a more effective response to juvenile crime and to a larger effort to build community âcollective efficacy.â? Instead of a macro focus, Bazemore emphasizes micro and mid-range interventions in considering the potential of restorative conferencing for community building. He focuses on how to accomplish two primary objec-tives: changing the nature and effect-tiveness of the response to crime through expanded citizen involvement in sanctioning processes that emphasize intervention outcomes (beyond punish-ment and treatment of the offender); and building community capacity or collective efficacy to sustain and expand these responses. Challenges to implementing various conferencing models are presented, along with a general strategy for moving forward within a vision that explicitly links these micro-conflict resolution models to broader efforts to build community capacity and to expand citizen participation in the justice process.